How international is entrepreneurship?

We conclude that IE research comprises a very small proportion of the research conducted in the domains of IB and management. Moreover, although the amount of IB research appears to be growing over time (based on Werner & Brouthers' 2002 analysis) in top management journals, the same cannot be said for IE research.

Replication versus Innovation

What accounts for the lack of IE research in top IB and management journals? It may be due to self-selection; scholars in IE may prefer to publish in top entrepreneurship journals. It may be that there are systematic differences among editors and editorial boards that affect the amount of IE content. Or it may be simply a function of the number of international papers submitted to specific top journals.

Here we posit an alternative explanation: innovative IE research is inherently more difficult to do than IB research because IB research merely focuses on what changes or is different when firms leave their domestic environment. In contrast, innovative IE research has to simultaneously address a second question: how does the phenomenon of interest differentially impact entrepreneurship versus Multinational Enterprises (MNEs)? Thus, we suggest that in order to do innovative IE research, IE scholarship finds itself in the difficult position of having to address both issues at once. This increases the complexity of IE research, making it difficult for IE scholars to come up with topics of interest.

Replication represents an alternative research approach more readily accepted by entrepreneurship journals than by top IB/management journals. Replication IE research tends to concentrate on external validity issues: do Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) behave the same as MNEs with respect to a specific international issue? Such studies are less likely to be valued by major IB and management journals. Thus, we propose that the lack of IE research in major IB and management journals may in part be because much IE research merely replicates previous IB/management journal studies, substituting smaller/newer firms for larger ones.

In an exploratory effort to examine this notion, we examined all 127 IE articles appearing in the IB and management journals during both time periods to determine whether they were replications of research conducted on MNEs or were strictly entrepreneurial in nature. An article was judged to be a replication if it merely dealt with a change in external validity; if an article dealt with a change in substantive domain from large to small entrepreneurial businesses without a change in theory or hypotheses, it was categorized as a replication. Results are presented in Table 2. Our results show that for the top three entrepreneurship journals, the percentage of IE replication articles increased from 50% during the time period 1986-1990, to 70.49% from 2000 to 2004. In contrast, the ratio of replication IE articles published in the six IB and management journals fell from 64.29 to 32.14% during the same respective time periods. The lack of interest in mere replication from major IB and management journals appears to be reflected in the lower rate of replication found in the IB and management journals; the percent of replication actually increased for the entrepreneurship journals. These results provide prima facie support for our conjecture; while IE scholars appear to be interested in external validity questions, IB and management scholars more commonly are not.

Discussion

The major entrepreneurship journals have become increasingly international over the last 18 years; they more than doubled the number of IE articles from 1986 to 1990 to 2000 to 2004. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice showed a fivefold increase.

With respect to management journals, gains in IE research were modest: from 2000 to 2004, the highest percentage was 2.80%. ASQ still lacks any IE content. While IB journals published more IE research than management journals, IE research remained a very small percent of total publications (3.7%). Our most recent data show that about one in seven articles in top entrepreneurship journals address international entrepreneurship topics, while only one in 27 articles in the top IB journals address IE. Even more discouraging, only one in 51 articles in top management journals deal with international entrepreneurship topics.

Why does IE still play such a small role in IB and management research? We proposed and found that much IE research merely replicates IB and international strategy research, substituting smaller firms for larger ones. Top entrepreneurship journals appear to be willing to publish IE replication research while IB and management journals appear to be much less willing. Based on our findings, we suggest that in order to publish IE research in high-quality, nonentrepreneurship journals, IE scholars may need to focus on what is different about IE rather than on what is similar to MNE research.

Implications for Practitioners and Scholars

How useful is IE research for practitioners? Although beyond the scope of this paper, we propose an initial answer to the following question: how different should advice given to entrepreneurs/SME practitioners be from advice given to MNE managers? If entrepreneurs/SMEs are merely smaller versions of MNEs, then IE replication studies make sense academically, but offer little useful advice that is not already known about the MNE. However, if entrepreneurs/SMEs are different from MNEs, as many scholars suggest (Calof & Viviers, 1995; Chen & Hambrick, 1995; De Chiara & Minguzzi, 2002; Zacharakis, 1997), then mere replication that excludes crucial differences could result in inappropriate or misleading advice. Both types of studies are useful; they tell us how entrepreneurs/SMEs are both similar to and different from MNEs. By pursuing both lines of inquiry, 1E scholarship can tell entrepreneurs/SMEs when to imitate MNEs and when to differ from MNEs in practice and strategy.

We conclude with a final suggestion for IE scholars. We suggest that they concentrate on how entrepreneurship activity at the firm level that occurs outside the domestic environment differs from MNE research. By doing so, IE scholars can advance IE knowledge in a manner that merits publication in top IB and management journals, as well as in top entrepreneurship journals.

REFERENCES

Brouthers, K.D. & Brouthers, L.E. (2001). Explaining the national cultural distance paradox. Journal of International Business Studies, 32(1), 177-192.

Calof, J. & Viviers, W. (1995). Internationalization behavior of small and medium-sized South African enterprises. Journal of Small Business Management, 33(4), 71-79.

Chen, M.J. & Hambrick, D.C. (1995). Speed, stealth, and selective attack: How small firms differ from large firms in competitive behavior. Academy of Management Journal, 38(2), 453-482.

De Chiara, A. & Minguzzi, A. (2002). Success factors in SMEs' internationalization processes: An Italian investigation. Journal of Small Business Management, 40(2), 144-153.

Hisrich, R.D., Honig-Haftel, S., McDougall, P.P., & Oviatt, B.M. (1996). International entrepreneurship: Past, present, and future. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 20(4), 5-7.

McDougall, P.P. & Oviatt, B.M. (2000). International entrepreneurship: The intersection of two research paths. Academy of Management Journal, 43(5), 902-906.

Ricks, D.A., Toyne, B., & Martinez, Z. (1990). Recent developments in international management research. Journal of Management, 16, 219-253.

Shrader, R.C., Oviatt, B., & McDougall, P.P. (2000). How new ventures exploit trade-offs among international risk factors: Lessons for the accelerated internationalization of the 21st century. Academy of Management Journal, 43(6), 1227-1247.

Werner, S. & Brouthers, L.E. (2002). How international is management? Journal International Business Studies, 33(3), 583-591.

Wright, R.W. & Ricks, D.A. (1994). Trends in international business research: Twenty-five years later. Journal of lnternational Business Studies, 25(4th Quarter), 687-701.

Zacharakis, A. (1997). Entrepreneurial entry into foreign markets: A transaction cost perspective. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 21(3), 23-39.

Please send correspondence to: Ernesto C. Gamboa, tel.: 915-256-2525; e-mail: ecgamboa@sbcglobal.net

Ernesto C. Gamboa

Lance Eliot Brouthers

Ernesto C. Gamboa is an International Business PhD student at the College of Business Administration at the University of Texas at E1 Paso.

Lance Eliot Brouthers is a professor of International Business and a professor of Western Hemispheric Trade at the University of Texas at El Paso.

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Academy of Management's 2005 conference. Table 1 Number and Percentage of IE Articles in Top Entrepreneurship, IB, and Management Journals

2000-2004

Cross-

Total Total IE national Journals IE articles (%) (%) Journal of Business Venturing 24 164 14.63 7.93 Journal of Small Business 21 150 14.00 5.33

Management Entrepreneurship Theory and 16 124 12.90 4.03

Practice Total for entrepreneurship 61 438 13.93 5.94 Management International 6 95 6.32 5.26

Review Journal of International 7 193 3.63 1.04